


if there's no you

by searchingforstars



Series: febuwhump/fluff 2020! [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Nightmares, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Protective Tony Stark, References to Depression, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22742308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingforstars/pseuds/searchingforstars
Summary: Tony Stark doesn’t know how to be a parent.Over the couple of years that Peter’s been in his life, he’s picked up little bits here and there - how to be patient, calm and caring in a way that his own childhood never allowed him to learn - but that’s all been from May.He owes everything to May Parker.She isn’t here anymore though.--or, both Peter and Tony go through the five stages of grief in the wake of May Parker’s death.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: febuwhump/fluff 2020! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622380
Comments: 34
Kudos: 320





	1. i just pretend it isn’t real

**Author's Note:**

> this work is written for the prompts:  
> 13\. bouquet of roses (febufluff)  
> 14\. broken heart (febuwhump)  
> 15\. hot chocolate (febufluff platonic)  
> 16\. teddy bear (febufluff)
> 
> ...the ratio of fluff to whump prompts is almost unbelievable considering how many times i made myself cry editing this fic :))
> 
> (warnings for mentions of death + grief/mourning throughout this work)

_Peter wishes he could relive everything without wondering what he could have done to change it._

Tony’s on the couch scowling at some file he has projected in front of him when Peter waltzes into the penthouse on a Thursday afternoon.

“I’m nearly finished, I promise, Pep,” Tony grumbles. “You didn’t have to come all the way back up here to check-” he swivels around and finds Peter standing behind him, backpack slung over one shoulder and a slightly sheepish grin on his face.

“-up on me,” he finishes lamely. “Kid, what’re you doing here?”

“Just thought I’d drop by, say hello,” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Tony’s eyebrows raise ever so slightly but he doesn’t say anything as Peter drops his backpack on the coffee table, textbooks thudding against the wood, and sinks down onto the couch. He kicks his feet up into Tony’s lap.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Parker? An aunt you could go and annoy rather than poor old me? I’m a busy man.”

Peter can tell he’s teasing, even as he pushes his converse-clad feet to one side off his lap. Peter plops them straight back.

“Nah. May took a night shift,” he explains. "There’s meant to be this gas dude coming by the apartment with the landlord so I thought I’d hang out here and try to avoid any potentially life-altering awkward social interactions.”

“ _Life-altering_?”

“Uh-huh. That shit sticks with you forever, Mister Stark.”

“Right, got it,” he says, not even bothering to chastise Peter’s language. He turns half of his attention back to the files in front of him. Peter had tried reading them over Tony’s shoulder from his spot reclined back against the couch arm but he stopped bothering after he got a few lines down. It looks like a contract of some kind - nothing exciting. It probably explains Tony’s slightly on edge mood; Peter knows he hates all that shit.

“Why’s there a gas man at your place anyway?” Tony asks absentmindedly as he flicks over to the next page. Peter’s pulled his phone out now, scrolling through Instagram. He double taps a photo of one of his classmates standing in front of the entrance to Six Flags before he glances up towards Tony.

“Dunno, May didn’t really say much. Something about the pipes or the mains or something. We can smell gas all the time but I think my senses just make it worse than it is. Hopefully that goes away once this dude’s had a look at it.”

Tony frowns. “Gas problems can be pretty serious, kid. Let me know if they don’t fix it, alright? I’ll send one of our guys round to take a look at it. In fact, FRI,” he calls, looking up towards the ceiling, “remind me to text May later and check in.”

“ _Got it, Boss_.”

Tony looks over towards Peter once more, his gaze softening at the sight of the kid having made himself completely and utterly at home on the sofa next to him.

“You staying for dinner?”

“Only if that’s not a problem? Because I can totally just grab something on the way home if-”

“Can it, kid. Do you _want_ to stay?”

“Uh, yeah. Definitely. That’d be nice.”

“Yeah? Okay good,” Tony says, shoving Peter’s feet off once more. “And if you’re gonna stay, at least take your shoes off the sofa you heathen. Where’d May raise you, a barn?”

Peter huffs but kicks his shoes off all the same. His socked feet end up straight back in Tony’s lap.

* * *

A few weeks later, Peter sits across from May at their cramped dining table. There’s a dry grocery store rotisserie chicken in between them, a pack of dinner rolls and a salad Peter threw together before she got home with whatever they had in the fridge - lettuce, cucumber and carrots that have gone just a little too soft.

“Thank you so much for doing dinner, sweetheart,” May smiles. She seems tired and the lines on her face look more prominent tonight - they always do after a long shift.

_He should have done more to try and commit the sight to memory. It’s fading now. She can’t be gone. She can’t be gone._

“No problem,” Peter shrugs nonchalantly. He never likes to make May feel like helping around the house is disadvantaging him in any way. He knows how hard she works, he wants to be able to help her out wherever he can. “How was work?”

“Oh, same old, same old,” she says, lifting a forkful of chicken up to her mouth when she suddenly cracks into a grin. “ _Oh_ , gosh, I have to tell you about Jacqueline today. Do you remember me telling you about her? She’s from the geriatric ward, very lonely, bless, but she comes out with the funniest things. I was doing the rounds with the doctors this morning and one of them, Doctor Luke, well he isn’t bad looking _at all._ Once he was gone and I was refilling her medicine prescription, she asked all about Luke, then she asked me where she could get _herself_ one!”

She bursts out laughing, a loud and radiant sound that fills the room and even though the joke isn’t even that funny ( _May’s jokes never were_ ) Peter can’t help but laugh along with her. It’s infectious.

_He misses her laugh so much. She can’t be gone. She can’t be._

May asks Peter about school, about how Ned’s mother is doing, about his and Tony’s work in the lab. Her own plate is empty in front of her while Peter polishes off the last few scraps to appease his metabolism.

He's starting to feel sick now as he reaches for the last dinner roll. He's not sure whether it's just that he ventured into the wrong grocery store to buy the chicken or if it's the gas that he's been able to smell making a return recently.

He so badly wants to ignore it, doesn’t want to stress May out even more, but he can’t eventually when he takes a particularly deep breath in and the smell assaults his senses. He wrinkles his nose.

“Uh, May? Can you smell that?” Peter asks around his mouthful of bread roll.

“Smell what?” She sniffs the air herself. “It’s probably just the dumpsters downstairs, Mister Freaky-Senses. We could always close the window?” she suggests. The window over the sink is indeed open, letting in the lazy evening breeze, but Peter knows that’s not it.

“I don’t think that’s it. It’s more like, have you noticed the gas smell kinda coming back? It’s super strong tonight.”

May’s eyebrows crease. “Allen said it was all sorted,” she frowns. “ _God_ , I hate the landlords in this city.”

“I mean, it’s not bothering me or anything, just maybe we should get it looked at again?”

“I’ll ring Allen tomorrow, get him to send someone back round.”

“Mister Stark offered to send someone around, didn’t he?” Peter asks, sure that he remembers hearing the two of them on the phone about it not long ago. They’re on the phone to each other a bit. He’s convinced they both just enjoy having someone else to gossip about him to.

“He’s so busy at the moment, with that Japanese deal that Pepper’s been telling me about, I don’t really want to add anything else to his plate. I’ll give him a call if this next time doesn’t fix it,” May says determinedly.

Peter relents. He ducks out of the kitchen to escape the gas smell later that night once he’s finished up drying the dishes, dreading the stack of Spanish homework waiting for him on his desk. May‘s promised to bring him a mug of hot chocolate once he’s finished, though, so he’s determined to get it over with as quickly as possible.

“Remember to call Allen!” he calls over his shoulder, and May waves him from the room.

“ _Yes_ , my demanding darling child,” she jibes in response.

_But she never got the chance._

_Peter wishes he’d known._

_He would have gotten them out of the apartment, maybe suggested a late-night trip to the ice cream parlour down the road. Tony slipped him a fifty-dollar note last weekend to pick them both up some snacks for the lab and he hadn’t used all of it. They could have afforded it._

_He wishes he’d known._

* * *

The gas pipe burst in the kitchen at ten o’clock that night, explosion tearing through the apartment in a burst of light and heat.

May Parker was there one second, standing at the counter, stirring cream into a mug of hot chocolate to take into Peter, alive and well.

And then she just... wasn’t anymore.


	2. this won't go back to normal, if it ever was

The Five Stages of Grief:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

* * *

Tony Stark doesn’t know how to be a parent.

Over the couple of years that Peter’s been in his life, he’s picked up little bits here and there - how to be patient, calm and caring in a way that his own childhood never allowed him to learn - but that’s all been from May.

All learnt through the hours spent on the phone when Peter retreats into himself and refuses to talk to them, or when they just felt like the company of someone else who understands what it’s like to try and raise a stubborn Spider-Kid.

The late nights sitting on the couch in the Parker’s apartment, minutes crawling past on the ticking wall clock as they pass a bottle of sparkling water between them, waiting for Peter to return from a particularly dangerous patrol.

The dinners where Tony would cram around their small dining table and rib May for her cooking, only to end up on cooking duty himself the next week as a result.

The school prize-givings, decathlon ceremonies and science fairs where Tony's sat at the back of an auditorium watching teenager after teenager that he doesn't care about walk across the stage to be handed their certificate (or a trophy is they're as smart as Peter, but biasedly, Tony isn't convinced anyone is) with May elbowing him in the ribs every so often with a hushed, " _be patient_ ," in his ear. But when Peter would finally get his turn to cross the stage, shyly proud smile tugging at his lips, it was always worth the wait.

He owes everything to May Parker.

She isn’t here anymore though.

Not since the gas pipe that tore their kitchen apart, tore _her_ apart. Not since that fateful night when FRIDAY alerted him that emergency services were responding at the address of Peter and May Parker. When she told him that there were reports of only one survivor.

Tony will never, _ever_ admit to anyone the surge of relief that rushed through him when he stepped through the door of that hospital room allocated to ‘Parker’, dread suffocating him, to find Peter banged up and bandaged in a bed in the middle of the room. The doctors told him that Peter was lucky. Had he been anywhere closer to the kitchen, he would have been long gone. He’s unconscious, a little cut up from the windows shattering with the force of the blast, bruised from being thrown from his desk to the other side of the room, but he's alive.

Guilt still claws at him when he thinks about that, the solace he found in the fact that Peter’s heart was still beating in his chest when they didn’t even have a body of May’s to bury.

May Parker is gone.

Tony keeps telling himself that. It doesn’t feel real.

The only piece of her that survived the blast is asleep a few doors down the hall.

This isn’t exactly anything new. Peter’s spent countless nights here before. But this time there isn’t an overnight bag at the foot of the bed. This time there isn’t an Aunt waiting for him in Queens - all that’s left for him there is a half-decimated apartment and tattered memories. 

This time he isn’t going home.

This is home.

He just has to figure out how to make it feel like it.

Tony’s sitting at his desk as he mulls this all over. His phone buzzes with a text and he glances down at it briefly, the impossibly optimistic side of his brain that’s still stuck in a realm of disbelief always hoping it’s going to be May’s name on the screen. Asking after Peter, how he’s doing tonight, why he didn’t call her to say goodnight.

It’s not - because _of course_ , Tony thinks. You don’t get cell service from beyond the grave.

It’s just a text from Happy and he turns his phone over, resuming staring blankly down at his desk. There’s some unimportant document packet sitting there. He thinks it might be to do with the work the Stark Relief Foundation is doing in Afghanistan - Pepper sent it through to him a few days ago but he doesn't think she actually expects him to do anything with it. It’s just there in case he needs a distraction. She’s good like that.

There are lots of other things worthy of his attention, sure. The custody papers he’s got shoved off to the right underneath a copy of May’s will, most notably. He can’t quite bring himself to touch those yet though, not without Peter being in a sound enough headspace to give his express permission for this to happen. Tony is determined that the kid won’t have anything else happen to him that he doesn’t want. 

He tugs May’s will closer to him once more, scanning over the page he’s got it flipped open to. He’s read these words over and over in the past few days, just to make sure that he hasn’t got it all wrong, that he isn’t trying to fill shoes that May intended to be filled by someone else.

But there it is, printed in the depressingly-official font:

_I, May Parker, the legal guardian of my nephew, Peter Benjamin Parker, hereby nominate and appoint Anthony Edward Stark as his guardian in the event of my death._

The words never change. It’s always him.

Tony’s never been able to hear the words in May’s voice when he reads over that sentence, time and time again. It’s so unlike anything he ever heard come out of her mouth, so unlike the way their actual conversation went.

It was one of the many nights they spent holding a bedside vigil together over Peter in the MedBay, mumbling shit back and forth to each other into the early hours of the morning because neither of them could bear to go to sleep and take their eyes off their kid.

_“I need you to promise me something, Tony. If anything ever happens to me, if I can’t take care of Peter anymore, I want you to do it. I need you to do it.”_

_“If anyone isn’t going to be around, it’ll be me, May, we know that-”_

_“Don’t say that. Don’t change the subject. I just need to know. I need to know he’ll be taken care of.”_

_Tony swallowed. “Yeah. Of course. There’s no question there.”_

_“Thank you, Tony.”_

He’s jerked out of his self-indulged ruminations again by the sound of muffled whimpers from down the hall. He wonders briefly how long they’ve been going on for - whether his own self-pity and all-demanding thoughts roaring between his ears has been drowning them out.

He doesn’t have time to sit here and mourn, wallow in what _he’s_ lost. No - not when Peter has lost the last remaining member of his family, left with Tony as a shoddy stand-in.

Tony waits a brief second to see whether the sounds stop. He’s heard Peter crying more times than he wants to try and count over the past few days, but he only ever goes in there if it sounds like he’s getting himself a little too worked up, to the point where maybe he won’t be able to calm himself down again. The rest of the time, Tony leaves him to it, lets him process everything and grieve, go through the wave of emotions he needs to before be can start to feel okay again.

Tony kind of wishes he'd had someone just outside his door, listening to his cries and wrapping him in a hug when it all got too much, when his own parents died.

The whimpers don’t stop. They sound more distressed than usual, so Tony pulls himself up out of his office chair, the room darkened around him in the late hour, and steps out into the hallway.

He’s cautious when he pulls Peter’s door open after a few seconds of hovering outside unsurely, trying to make sure he doesn’t make too much noise and startle the kid.

He didn’t need to worry though, because Peter is asleep, hair tousled and head shoved into his pillow, cries and whines still just as heart-piercing to Tony even when they’re obscured by the fabric.

The nightmares have been a frequent occurrence as well. He knows Peter has snuck down into the lab and changed FRIDAY’s coding so he’s not alerted about them anymore, and he’s left that be for the time being. He’s still trying to walk the line between giving Peter as much privacy as the teenager feels like he needs and being a _parent_. Those two things seem to overlap very rarely.

Like right now, he usually hears them anyway. He hasn't been getting much sleep recently.

Tony lowers himself down onto the unoccupied side of the bed slowly, reaching out to lay a gentle hand over Peter’s trembling shoulder.

“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs, keeping his voice low and soft. “You gotta wake up for a sec, gotta shake this nasty dream you’re having. You can go straight back to sleep, I promise.”

Peter doesn’t wake. One of his legs kicks out underneath the covers.

Tony squeezes Peter’s shoulder. He’s hesitant to shake him and startle him awake. “You really need to get better at listening to me, Pete. Reckon you can open your eyes for me?”

Peter stirs at this. A barely coherent noise, something close to a groan that sounds less fearful than all of his previous noises escapes his throat.

“There he is. C’mon, you can do it.”

Brown eyes are looking at him all of a sudden, and Tony shudders out a sigh of relief.

“Hey, you alright? That seemed like a pretty-”

Tony cuts himself off as Peter shoves himself up in bed, shaking hands gripping at the duvet cover.

“Kid?”

His eyes dart around, taking in his surroundings. His breathing is speeding up, even quicker than it had been before, his chest beginning to tremble and Tony feels his own heart lurch at this.

“Where’s May. I-” he sucks in a deep breath that rattles in his throat and comes out sounding more like a gasp, “I… I need _May_.”

Tony winces. He’s not sure what to say. _What do you say to that?_

Pepper would be better in this sort of situation. She’s gentle and caring naturally, she would know how to help Peter cope with his loss, how to help ease the all-consuming ache of grief and Peter’s broken heart. She’s not here though - stuck in Japan working on their manufacturing deal - and May is very much not here either, her absence felt like a gaping wound.

Tony’s on his own.

“M-May,” Peter repeats. His eyes search towards the bedroom door as if he might find her standing there.

“I - I’m sorry, Peter,” Tony says stupidly. He’s at a loss.

The light spilling in from the hallway catches the tears beginning to glint in the corner of Peter’s eyes. He’s starting to get worked up, Tony can tell, and _god_ , it sounds so awful in his head but he wishes he wouldn’t. He doesn’t know if he has the capacity to deal with this right now.

_How did May not have the foresight to see that he would be an awful father?_

“Where is she?” Peter gasps out. He’s rocking himself back and forth, hands still tangled in his sheets to the point Tony worries they might rip beneath his grip. Peter would feel guilty about that for weeks.

Tony reaches out to tug Peter closer him, winding an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into his chest. He doesn’t know what else to do but Peter just struggles, lashing out against him with flailing limbs. He flinches slightly when one of Peter’s arms connects with his shoulder, but he doesn’t say anything, just rubs a hand up and down over Peter’s shaky back.

“No, n-no, get _off_ ,” Peter growls, struggling to get words out between his uneven breathing. “I don’t want _y-you_ , get _off_. I want May!” His voice is raised now, high pitched and bordering on hysterical.

“She’s not here, kiddo. You know that,” Tony says as gently as possible. It pains him to even have to say those words.

“ _No_! You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re _lying_!”

Peter’s making no effort to conceal or even wipe away the tears streaming steadily down his face now and his breathing is ragged and panicked. His grief is swallowing him whole, tugging him down into the dark and lonely sea of heartbreak that Tony has been desperately fighting against, trying to make sure their heads stay above the water.

They’re sinking now. The both of them.

“Peter. You need to listen to me. I’m really sorry, but May isn’t here. It’s just you and me kid, and I’m so, so sorry.”

"N-No, no,” Peter mutters, shaking his head to himself. He tries once more to weakly pull himself from Tony’s grip, but he just tightens his hold around Peter’s shoulders and keeps him pulled against him.

He’s not going to let Peter feel like he’s alone.

“I need you to come back to me, Pete,” Tony whispers, cupping a hand around the nape of Peter’s neck.

It’s like someone flips a switch inside Peter, his face crumpling and falling with a heartbroken look of sorrow. He goes limp in Tony’s arms and finally lets himself be held without trying to fight back. He whimpers, and it’s such a tiny miserable sound that it alights every single protective instinct in Tony’s body.

“Is… is she really g-gone?”

“I - yeah, kid. She is.”

Tony could almost cry himself.

_May Parker, how could you do this to us?_

“I miss h-her” Peter whispers, barely audible above the silence now hanging over the room.

Tony sighs.

_God, so do I kid. So much._

“Yeah, Pete. Me too.”

* * *

Peter goes back to school the next week.

If Tony’s being honest, he’s not entirely sure that he’s ready, but he’s insistent that he’s sick and tired of sitting around the penthouse.

Secretly, Tony does wonder whether it’s because at least at school, maybe Peter can let himself fall into a sort of false hope that everything is normal - that he’s just there for another day of school and he’ll be able to go home back to Queens, back to May, afterwards.

That sounds like a surefire way to develop unhealthy coping mechanisms, but Tony tries to force himself not to grow too concerned yet.

He feels like he’s been tiptoeing around Peter, constantly trying to avoid stepping on the jagged edges of his grief and shattering the precarious state into even more tiny pieces. He doesn't want to get to the point where he feels like he might never be able to pick them all up, let alone glue them back together.

He has to let Peter handle this - everything else has been ripped out of his control, after all.

*

It’s a few minutes gone four when the tell-tale ding of the elevator doors opening rings out and Tony quickly turns away, trying to look like he hasn’t been hovering anxiously in the kitchen for the past half hour. He grabs a couple of bananas out of the fruit bowl for a smoothie.

He throws a glance over his shoulder when he hears footsteps head towards the kitchen, relieved Peter isn’t trying to hide himself away just yet. “Hey, kid.”

Peter doesn’t look… great. He’s too pale, looking slightly too gaunt (only testament to how badly Tony is fucking his job up - he can’t even make sure the kid _eats_ ) and his face is set in a stony scowl.

He drops his backpack with what’s probably a lot more force than is necessary. He doesn’t reply to Tony’s greeting. Tony takes a deep breath and tries again.

“Everything go okay at school today?”

Peter grunts, and okay, that’s probably better than _nothing_.

“How’s Ned? MJ?” he asks, as he walks over to the fridge to grab out the carton of milk. He squeezes a hand over Peter’s shoulder as he passes but he shrugs away.

Normally this is when Tony would decide that something is definitely, one hundred per cent not right. It’s also the time that usually, Tony would shoot off a text to May and ask whether she knows what's going on, whether there are any topics he should avoid or any information he should try and worm out of Peter.

He's got nothing this time. He’s on his own.

Giving them both a second to breathe, he adds the milk into the smoothie, tossing in some blueberries and spinach before he switches the blender on. It whirs to life, the sound filling the room and neither Peter nor Tony bother to try and talk over it.

The blender runs its course and the room descends into quiet again. Tony fills two glasses and pushes one across the counter to where Peter is standing, shoulders hunched forward defensively. He won’t look Tony in the eyes.

He mutters a “thanks,” under his breath. It’s the first proper word Tony’s heard out of Peter since he walked in, and he’s racking his brains to try and figure out the most tactful way to bring it up when he notices that Peter still hasn’t made any move to reach for his own drink in front of him. Instead, his eyes are fixated on the bouquet of roses sitting just to the right. They’d been delivered earlier in the day and honestly, Tony had completely forgotten that they were there.

There’s a card attached, and Peter moves one hand towards it as if he’s going to flip it over and read it before he pulls back like he’s been burned.

“What are these?”

_A full sentence. Progress!_

“Just some flowers, bud. They’re for you, actually. Pepper’s Mom heard about what happened and she just wanted to-”

Before Tony can finish his sentence, Peter has lashed out and shoved the bouquet off the counter. They hit the tile with a dull thud.

“Peter?” Tony asks cautiously. A little bit of confusion taints his tone. Peter glares.

“What's the point of those?"

"She just wanted to send you something, maybe she thought it might cheer you up, I don't know-"

Peter huffs out a bitter sigh that almost sounds like a snarl. "Fuck that. Roses aren't going to make anything fucking better, nothing could _ever_ make this better!" he snaps, tone laced with so much vitirol that it makes Tony draw back slightly.

“Okay, it’s fine, we can just-”

Peter kicks out at the bouquet and the cellophane they’re still wrapped in crackles as it slides across the floor and hits the bottom of the cupboard doors. He swears under his breath and Tony can feel irritation start to creep up inside him no matter how hard he tries to shove it back down.

“Jesus Christ, Peter, it’s not such a big deal. She was just trying to be nice, okay?”

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose and blows out hard.

 _May would want you to have patience_ , he reminds himself.

_I’m trying my best, May. I really am._

“It doesn’t matter! May _hates_ roses! She thinks they’re snobby and… and e-expensive and she hates them!” he seethes, voice cracking with his anger. For a brief second afterwards, his face crumples with some sort of vulnerability. “She liked carnations. They were - uh, the cheapest. She thought they were pretty.”

“Okay,” Tony says, forcing himself to stay calm. “So we get rid of the roses, no big deal.”

He reaches down to grab the now wilted and slightly bent bouquet, but no sooner does he do this, Peter’s anger doubles back in full swing and the kid reaches down to swipe them off the floor before he can even get close. The second he straightens up, the roses are being forced towards him, Peter shoving them square against his chest. A thorn pricks him just below the collarbone and he tries to hide his wince.

“You keep them,” Peter says, words bristling with a defensive sort of resentment. “They’re probably just for you anyway. It’s not like I’ve got anybody left who cares about me. They only care because I’m stuck with you.”

It sounds like he believes what he’s saying, and it strikes Tony right in the chest, just above where the stupid rose thorn had.

“You know that’s not true, Pete. You’ve got Pep, and Rhodey, Happy and _me_. We'll all still be here for as long as you want us to be. We want to be here for you - you just have to let us.”

Peter juts his chin out and looks up to meet Tony’s eyes. Anger and distrust are simmering in his own.

“I know your name was on May’s will. I know that’s the only reason I’m here, because you made some sort of promise to May or something and you feel too bad to go back on it. Don’t _lie_ to me.”

“God, don’t talk like that, Peter," Tony says, words strangled in his throat. "You’re here because I care about you, as much as you seem to find that hard to believe. I’d appreciate it if you toned this whole angsty teenager thing down a few notches so we could have a proper conversation without you biting my head off. I’m only trying to help but you’re making that kind of impossible right now.”

“Sorry for making your life so difficult, but I didn’t even ask to _be here_!”

Tony feels a cold wash of regret from his words as soon as Peter turns on his heel and storms from the room, posture tightly wound.

“Pete, wait,” Tony calls out after him. He doesn’t know what he’d say if Peter turns around, he just doesn’t want to leave things like _this_.

He doesn’t have to think about what to say though, because Peter doesn’t turn around or even indicate that he’s heard.

Tony hears a door slam somewhere inside the penthouse not long afterwards and he groans and tips forward over the counter, exhaustion invading his every move. He lets his head sink into his hands, knuckling at his eyes until he’s seeing psychedelic shapes and colours dance on the back of his eyelids.

A few lone rose petals remain on the white tile, taunting him.

Both of their smoothies are undrunk, and he reminds himself to take something in to Peter once he’s had a chance to hopefully settle down a little.

He doesn’t know how things got this bad and honestly, he's not sure how to make any of it better.

* * *

Peter’s angry for days after that.

He argues about the brand of cereal Tony buys. He argues when Tony tries to order in a few more winter clothes for him. He argues when Tony brings up taking a weekend vacation somewhere, maybe the Hamptons. Hell, he argues when Tony asks whether he’ll get the salt from the pantry one night while he’s cooking dinner.

And then it just… stops.

Tony doesn't know whether he’s relieved or disappointed that the fire seems to have died out within Peter. He just goes silent again, drawing back into himself, any remaining anger washed away in the tidal surges of his grief.

Which is why as Tony wanders up from the lab and along the dark hallway to finally put himself to bed at the half-reasonable time of two am, he’s surprised to hear movement coming from behind Peter’s door, muffled footsteps and shuffling.

He considers just walking by but stopping and checking that everything is okay, telling Peter to get some sleep, seems like the kind of thing a responsible adult - _guardian_ \- would do. The kind of person Tony is trying to become.

So he stops, brings a hand up to the door to knock tentatively. The sounds inside continue. There’s a sudden crunching sound, like paper being aggressively balled up.

“Hey, kid? Everything okay in there?”

There’s a second in which everything goes silent, before the door swings open. Peter stands there for a moment, eyes wide as he stares at Tony. “Hey, Mister Stark,” he says absent-mindedly. He turns back and returns to whatever the hell he's doing. “Shouldn’t you be like, in bed or something?”

A choked sort of surprised sound escapes Tony before he can help it. He stares at Peter incredulously. “Y’know, I could say the same thing to you.”

“I’m busy.” Peter pulls open one of the two drawers he’s actually unpacked a few of his things into over the past few weeks. He yanks out the top layer of t-shirts and throws them onto the bed behind him.

“I can see that. With... what, exactly?” Tony asks, unsure if he actually even wants to know the answer. If he knows the answer, that means he has to be equipped to provide a solution of some kind. He’s almost positive he’s neither equipped nor qualified, not when it comes to parenting a grieving teenager.

Sure, he’s experienced both being a teenager and the loss of his parents in his lifetime. He made it out the other side. But at the same time, he kept himself so inebriated to deal with the pain that he’s got no solid advice to offer apart from that mixing red wine and vodka is potentially one of the worst decisions a man could ever make.

Thank god Peter doesn’t need to hear that. His advice is entirely null and void. He keeps trying though. Keeps pushing through the isolating walls of grief separating them both. Because he loves Peter Parker. And in their weird, round-about, co-parenting, maybe-you’re-not-as-scary-as-you-seem kind of way, he loved May Parker as well.

He has to do this for the both of them.

Peter turns and walks over to stand in front of the bed. He sorts through the t-shirts he discarded on top of the duvet only a minute ago and begins to sort through the, colour-coding them in piles and then folding them.

Tony’s a little suspended in disbelief. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Peter _fold_ anything in the entire time he’s known him. He’s long past accepted that Peter will constantly look like he’s never once in his life touched an iron with a ten-foot pole, all crumpled shirts and creased button-ups. It used to bug him a little in the beginning, only because he tried to imagine himself ever getting away with leaving the house looking that rumpled when he was younger but he _can’t_. It didn’t take him long to start finding it endearing though, such a display of casualness, a direct reflection of Peter’s immense lack of pomp and pretension.

So now, seeing him so carefully line up the sleeves, tucking the t-shirt over itself with such precision is unnerving.

“Peter?” Tony tries again. His last question has gone unanswered, Peter clearly so consumed in his task. “Wanna tell me what you’re doing? It’s late, you should be in bed,” Tony says because that definitely sounds like the sort of thing a responsible adult would say.

“Cleaning,” he answers distractedly, “gotta make sure everything’s tidy.”

Now that Tony takes a proper look around rather than focusing in on Peter, he notices the room _does_ look cleaner than the last time he saw it. The sheets are tucked tightly around the mattress, pillows perfectly arranged. A bunch of abandoned old homework sheets from the packets he’s been bringing home from school are crumpled up and overflowing out of the wastebasket, waiting to be discarded instead of littering the desk like they have been all week. His favourite Star Wars action figures are arranged in a perfect line on one of his shelves. Hell, he can even see the Spider-Man suit hanging on a coat hanger instead of discarded on the floor underneath the window where he usually leaves it, ready to go.

“Okay,” Tony says slowly, taking it all in. “Looks good, bud. But do you reckon the rest of it could wait until tomorrow, maybe? It’s two in the morning.”

“No, no, I just gotta finish. I’m nearly done, promise.” He finishes folding a blue t-shirt and gives it one last smooth over before he puts it back in his drawer. He steps back to pick up another t-shirt and Tony feels like stepping forward and pulling it out of his hands if it would mean he’d just go to _bed_.

“I don’t care what your room looks like,” Tony says. “I really don’t. As long as I can still see the floor in here then that’s cool with me. You getting enough sleep at night, though? That’s non-negotiable.”

“This can’t wait, okay? It just _can’t_. I’ll sleep once I’m finished, once everything is tidy. I gotta finish, I gotta make sure that she’ll be-”

Peter cuts his clearly delirious and exhausted rambling off sharply, and his eyes snap up to Tony as if to check whether he’s heard. Tony draws in a careful breath. This is all a lot more than he thought it was. He thought maybe this was just Peter trying to distract himself because he couldn’t sleep, needed to do something with his hands, not because-

“She?”

Peter shakes his head silently.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“That’s what you said.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to, _okay_? Drop it.”

“What’s going on, kid? Why are you doing all this?” Tony says, trying to keep his voice as light as possible. He doesn’t let the way Peter spat out his words harshly deter him as he steps further into the room, closer to Peter and Peter just lets him, thank goodness. He doesn’t take a step back or try to retreat. He keeps his gaze locked on his bare feet, toes curling uncomfortably into the carpet beneath them.

“I - it’s, it’s nothing, I swear.”

“Is this something to do with May, Pete? Because that's normal, you’re still working through everything, and-”

“May hated how messy my room always was,” Peter blurts all at once. “She was always on at me to clean it, but I always ignored her, I never did. I thought, maybe, I just thought that if I could clean my room now, and do it so well that it might work. Maybe she’d be back here to see it.”

Tony’s at a complete and utter loss for words. Peter’s stammered statement lodges itself in his chest and he forgets how to breathe. Suddenly the clean lines and dusted dresser and tightly tucked sheets seem a lot more depressing, born out of Peter’s longing and desperation for the person he loves most in the world to just _come back to him_.

“That’s not how death works, Pete. You know that,” Tony breathes out finally. Peter nods forlornly.

“I know… I just, I dunno. I just hoped, I guess? It’s stupid. Maybe I thought that if I could make her proud enough of me she’d wanna come back.”

Peter’s legs finally buckle and he crumples back onto the bed, hunching into himself. Tony takes a few careful steps forward again, this time to lower himself down onto the bed next to Peter. Their shoulders brush briefly.

“I’m sure she would give anything to come back to you, Pete. I’d do anything to bring her back to you if I could. But I can’t, life doesn’t work like that.”

“I just want her to be _p-proud_ of me,” Peter begs, voice breaking in a way that makes Tony just want to wrap him up and keep him safe and loved for the rest of his life.

He reaches down to squeeze Peter’s knee once in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. Ever since the night in Peter's room after the nightmare, where Tony tried to hold him but all Peter wanted was _May_ , he's been a little hesitant with the physical affection. He knows he's the wrong person, that he's not who Peter wants right now. 

“She already is. She’s always been proud of you, and I promise, she’s still so, so proud of you. That doesn’t stop just because she’s gone.”

Peter sniffs a little and glances up from where he’s fiddling with the hem of one of the unfolded t-shirts still piled at the end of the bed. “You promise?”

“Yeah, I do. Trust me, Peter. You’re the strongest person I know. It’s impossible _not_ to be proud of you.”

*

Later that night, Tony lies in bed. He finally got Peter off to sleep, after a few tears and more convincing that it was totally fine to leave the unfolded t-shirts until tomorrow.

He rang Pepper then as well afterwards, the time difference in Japan and her hectic schedule finally allowing it. It was soothing, hearing her voice in her ear, so assured and calm - unlike him. He feels like he’s got no idea what he’s meant to be doing at any given time at the moment.

She promised that she will, definitely and without a doubt, be back on American soil for May’s memorial next week, and all that really reminded him was of how much he's really dreading the whole thing. He wonders whether it will send Peter over the edge, especially after tonight, seeing him so heart-breakingly convinced that he could bring her back. Tony kind of understands. He’d give anything to have her back as well.

_If only May had accepted his offer of moving them into a nicer apartment._

_If only I had insisted on sending someone round instead of letting the shitty landlord deal with it._

_If only I hadn’t let it slide, let it slip out of my mind when other things came up._

_If only… if only… if only…_

Tony begins to wonder whether maybe Peter isn’t the only one that’s stuck in the bargaining phase.

* * *

May’s final resting place is right next to Ben’s.

The memorial happens on a crisp November afternoon in a cemetery in Queens. There’s a small group of them, all dressed in black under a blue sky. A few distant cousins Peter says he vaguely recognises. Rhodey and Happy. Clusters of people that May must have known from work that stand near the back and give Peter simpering, sympathetic smiles. Tony thanks them for coming, because Peter can’t even bear to look in their direction.

Him, Pepper and Peter stand shoulder to shoulder in front of a gravestone with no grave.

There’s no body to bury.

May is scattered amongst the rubble and the ashes of a half-obliterated apartment.

_I hope you’re somewhere nicer now, May. It’s a lovely day out today. We’re all here for you._

_I_ _hope you know how many people miss you._

Peter puts a pink carnation down on the unturned earth, hand trembling as he does but he doesn’t let himself break down. He’s strong and stoic in a way that Tony never was, a way that he wishes Peter didn’t _have_ to be.

Under the clear blue sky, they say their goodbyes to May Parker one last time.

Peter clings to him on the car ride home, finally letting himself fold after hours of holding his back up straight, his face impassive.

Tony holds him right back. There aren’t really any words to describe how harrowing it is to finally have to lay someone to rest, to have to part ways with them so formally in front of so many onlookers, so neither of them say anything.

New York City traffic honks and squeals outside the window, but inside the car, they sit in silence.

*

Peter doesn’t get out of bed for a few days after that. Tony doesn’t blame him. Part of him wishes he could just do the same, crawl into bed or hole himself away in the lab for a week or so, not have to see anyone. It’s what he would have done, years ago (or probably even a few months ago). But not anymore. He has more important things to do, people who need him. Peter is depending on him.

So he keeps himself busy.

Takes food into Peter three times a day and tries not to get on his back too much when he comes back to find a still full plate on his bedside table.

Upgrades a few of his suits to try and make himself feel normal again (he’s not sure if it works - all he really accomplishes is turning his thumb black and blue with a hammer when he gets distracted by asking FRIDAY how Peter’s doing).

Signs all the custody forms his legal team puts in front of him.

Tries to help Pepper out as much as he can with Stark Industries as a silent thank you for dealing with their deal in Japan while he was here in New York.

Sits with Peter every evening, even just for five minutes, to see if he can coax anything out of him. It’s almost always just Tony rambling about nothing into the quiet of the room, blinds remaining determinedly pulled down to block out any of the outside world and his room still immaculately and sort of worryingly in-order. Usually, he gets caught up in the feeling that Peter doesn’t want him there, that he’s just imposing on his mourning in a way that he has no right to, so like clockwork every night, he excuses himself and hopes he hasn’t made anything worse. Pepper always reassures him that he isn’t, that it will be doing Peter good to hear a voice that isn’t just the one circling around in his own head. He returns night after night, anyway. There’s something about the idea of leaving the kid bundled away under the covers in his dark cave of a room that makes him feel _wrong_.

He fields all the calls from the landlord of the Parker’s apartment as well.

The things from Peter and May’s bedrooms - the only rooms that weren’t blown apart or fire-ravaged after the explosion - were moved by the fire crew, police and members of the Stark Relief foundation that Tony assigned to the scene to a storage unit downtown.

He and Happy were there just before Peter was released from hospital to grab a few of his things, clothes and essentials but now the landlord clearly is just getting impatient to have the rest of the stuff gone. He’s so severely lacking any compassion whatsoever for the situation that it takes all the willpower Tony possesses not to snap and completely fly off the rails at the man whenever he picks up the phone.

So, then that’s how he and Pepper end standing slightly tentatively by the side of Peter’s bed on a Sunday morning. The kid’s not even pretending to be asleep, just staring at the wall, chest rising and falling slowly.

“Pep and I are going to go and sort through the rest of your stuff today. You feel up to coming with us?”

There’s no answer. Peter blinks up at them as if he’s trying to process what he’s hearing.

“A bit of fresh air might do you some good…” Tony tries cautiously. He doesn’t want to be pushy, definitely doesn’t want to overstep the new boundaries Peter seems to be putting in place for their relationship. Right now it seems like he's here to put a roof over his head and nothing more, but if that’s what Peter wants - what he _needs_ \- then Tony is trying his best to work with that (he just wishes it didn’t spark the crushing feeling of _not doing enough, never enough_ , in his chest).

“No, thanks,” Peter mumbles. His voice is hoarse from disuse and Tony makes a note in the back of his mind to bring some tea in later. That might help.

He’s not at all surprised by the answer, anyway. That’s why he asked Pepper, because he’s really not sure whether he wants to do it alone, and it feels deeply impersonal to send someone else out to do it for them.

“That’s okay, totally fine.” Tony shifts his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Everything in his body is screaming at him to _do something_ , to get Peter up, force him to take a shower and eat a proper meal, to fuss over and _parent_ him the way he so desperately wants to. The way he feels like he’s been doing a pretty good job at over the past couple of years until the gas and the explosion and the _loss of May_ threw them through a loop and landed them in this position, grappling to find their places with each other again.

Tony doesn’t know how to align their past with their new normal.

“We’ll be back later this afternoon, then. Ask FRIDAY if you need anything,” he settles on eventually. It sounds half-hearted. He wants Peter to call _him_ if he needs anything. He’s not sure he will though.

Peter makes a tiny humming noise of assent. Tony assumes that’s all they’re going to get.

“See you later, buddy.”

*

Inside storage unit 2556, labelled, ‘ _15th Street, Queens: Parker_ ,’ there are lots of mundane things that survived the explosion.

Towels, a soap dispenser, pillowcases, an old stereo. A cracked hairdryer and a bunch of old gadgets - tiny robots, computers and hard drives. Tony distantly recognises them as what Peter used to put together in the lab using bits and pieces pulled from dumpsters on the way home from school and his own scraps pile.

He puts a few of them aside to bring back for Peter to keep. To remind him that he’s put broken pieces together to create something great before. That he’ll be able to do it again.

( _No matter how broken he’s convinced he is_ ).

There are bits and pieces of Ben’s and May’s as well, already tucked away neatly into boxes that apparently the fire crew had to rescue from hidden all the way at the top of May’s wardrobe. A wedding album, cards and handwritten letters, old polaroid photos that are curling at the edges, tucked away into yellowed envelopes.

Tony knows that Peter is in no right state of mind to sort through any of these things right now, but he will be one day.

He shifts all of the boxes over towards the door, towards the pile that they’re loading back into the car to take back to the tower. He doesn’t know where they’ll keep everything. Somewhere safe where he can show Peter when he’s ready.

Tony moves on to rifling through an assortment of photo frames, trying not to slice open his hands on the pieces of grass, mainly cracked and shattered over the photos inside. There aren't any that he thinks could be thrown out, and he figures Peter deserves to be the judge of that anyway, so he absentmindedly transfers them all into the empty cardboard box beside him until something catches his eye. It’s a photo of him, Peter and May, grinning stupidly and cramped together in what looks like a sticky red diner booth. He’s pretty sure it was taken during a celebratory meal after one of Peter’s decathlon competitions, probably by Ned or his mother.

He can barely rip his eyes away from the photo.

He loves Pepper, he really, _really_ does. He loves her with his whole heart, she’s his soulmate, his partner, the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with without a doubt. But _god_ \- with him, Peter and May, sometimes that was the closest he felt like he’d ever gotten to having a real family. Dysfunctional, unconventional and kind of nuts, sure, but it was family all the same.

Throwing the frame out, he folds the photo in half once, slipping it into his pocket. He might pin it above his workbench in the lab.

He and Pepper don’t really have many framed photos around the penthouse, more so just multi-million dollar pieces of art, but he wonders whether that should probably change. He should let Peter choose a few of his favourite photos of May, scatter those around the place.

_Sorry, May. I know you hated photos of yourself, but you deserve to be remembered._

Maybe he could even find a few of him and Pepper, him and Peter. Make the penthouse feel more like a home.

“Do you think Peter’d like it if we brought this back for him?” Pepper asks suddenly, breaking Tony out of his thoughts. He finishes sorting a frame displaying a photo of toddler Peter - all chubby cheeks and crazy brown curls - sitting in Ben’s lap, placing it into the box labelled _KEEP_ in Pepper’s immaculate handwriting, before he looks up towards her.

She’s standing in amongst everything that had been retrieved from May’s room - various quilts, throw pillows and clothing - with a slightly ratty looking teddy bear in her arms. It’s one of those corny looking ones you might pick up from an overstuffed shelf in Walmart before Valentines Day, surrounded by picked over chocolate roses and packets of candy hearts. It’s holding a bright red heart that declares, ‘ _I Love You_.’

Tony finds himself smiling at it, despite himself. “Yeah, I think he’d like that.”

*

There’s an emotion shining in Peter’s eyes that's the closest to happiness that Tony has seen out of him in weeks when they hand him the teddy bear that evening and it makes the whole emotionally draining day completely worth it.

“This is… um, this is May’s,” he whispers as if he can barely believe it. He’s got it clutched so tightly in his grip it’s as if he’s afraid it might disappear if he loosens his hold on it even a little. “B-Ben, he gave it to her. I can’t remember when, but she kept it on her bed after he - after he, um, y’know. She loved it.”

Tony doesn't have any words so he just smiles when Peter reaches out to wrap a hand around his wrist in a silent thank you.

He doesn’t let go of the teddy bear for the rest of the day.

*

Tony doesn't sleep that well that night, and he drags himself out of bed eventually sometime after midnight His breathing is still a little laboured and there's too much adrenaline coursing through him to be able to go back to sleep.

He’s exhausted right to the bone, today having entirely taken it out of him. He was surprised for a second when he jerked awake to find Pepper’s side of the bed empty, until he remembers the whole jetlag conundrum she’s still suffering through after Japan.

All in all, he’s not surprised at all to find her sitting on the couch in her dressing gown, hands curled around a mug of tea. He _is_ surprised to find Peter out there with her, still in his pyjamas but out of bed at least. May’s teddy bear is wrapped tightly in his arms, his cheek resting against its threadbare fur.

Tony stops in the doorway, the surprise of the sight rooting him to the spot. “Hey guys,” he murmurs eventually, once he’s found his voice again. “You having a party out here that I wasn’t invited to?”

Peter doesn’t react but Pepper shoots him a smile, small and strained with worry. Tony takes a few steps forward towards the couch and he can make out Peter more clearly now in the darkness of the room. His eyes are unfocused, staring towards the window.

“I just found him lying here like this… I think maybe he's dissociating,” Pepper whispers. “I don’t even know if he knows I’m here. I tried talking to him a little before, but nothing.”

Tony grimaces, but he knows all of this is going a little far now. He has to bring Peter back to himself.

Settling himself down onto the couch just next to where Peter’s resting his head, Tony glances down at him. He looks smaller like this, younger. His legs tucked up towards his chest, old MIT t-shirt he’d picked up on a road trip with Tony hanging loose on his frame. He’s definitely too skinny now, another one of Tony’s transgressions.

He runs his fingers through Peter’s hair briefly, scratching gently at his scalp. His curls are slightly greasy, unwashed, and Tony resolves to force him into the shower tomorrow morning, no matter the cost.

Peter’s head shifts against the couch, something Tony hadn’t been expecting, not with how catatonic the kid looks, but a second later those big brown eyes are blinking up at him. He’s not exactly sure how much Peter’s actually seeing or taking in, but it’s comforting all the same.

Peter opens his mouth a little like he wants to force out words but he can’t quite manage it.

“I know, buddy. You’re okay, I promise,” Tony soothes.

Peter tightens the teddy to his chest.

“We’ve got you. You just do whatever you gotta do and we’ll be here when you feel like you wanna come back, okay?”

He opens his mouth again, and the shadow of frustration clouds his face when he still can’t make words come out.

They sit there for a while, Tony and Pepper making concerned eye-contact over the top of Peter’s still form every so often until finally, Peter manages to get his vocal cords working. His eyes are locked back on Tony again, but they’re more present this time. There’s a glimmer of desperation in them.

“I… I c-can’t-” he finally gets out, and palpable relief rushes through Tony. He can see the same happening for Pepper as she sinks further back against the couch. “I can’t feel _a-anything_. Why?”

Tony gives him the smallest of smiles, one he hopes is as reassuring as he means it to be. “You’re fine, bud. You’ve been feeling a whole lot at the moment, it’s okay to take a break for a little bit.”

Peter exhales a shuddery sigh, eyes drifting over to latch onto Pepper as she rises off her spot on the sofa.

“I’m going to get myself some more tea. Do you want anything, Peter? A hot chocolate?”

Tony nods in affirmation. _Good idea_. “The sugar could be a good idea, bud. Your blood levels have got to be running pretty low at the moment.”

“May used to make the best hot chocolate,” Peter mumbles and he looks the tiniest bit distant again. Tony wonders whether he’s fully aware of what he’s saying. “She used to do, uh, a dash of cream, stirred in, not on top, and - a-and caramel sauce, if we had it.”

“That does sound pretty good,” Tony admits. He dares to push a tiny bit further. “You wanna get in the kitchen for a minute, school me and Pepper on how to make a proper hot chocolate?”

And just like that, he’s gone too far because Peter snaps and retreats back into himself. He shakes his head harshly.

“N-No! It was… May… I can’t. I w-won’t.”

Tony regrets his suggestion instantly. He feels stupid for even suggesting it.

_Why did you think that was a good idea? Of course, anything that’s going to remind him so much of May should be off-limits, at least for now._

“Sorry. It was a stupid idea, kiddo. Ignore me.”

Peter doesn’t reply, but he also doesn’t reject it when Tony reaches over to rest a cautious hand on his back, rubbing up and down over the crinkles of his pyjama shirt.

It’s progress.

As much as he feels like beating himself up, berating himself for his slip up, Peter’s here. He’s out of his room - so what if it’s one am and he’s meant to have school in the morning and it’s a struggle for him to even articulate the shortest of sentences.

It’s one step forward.

Progress.

He knows that he hasn’t been doing enough to anchor Peter to reality. He’s let the storm of his emotions wash him out to sea and now it’s his job to drag him back to shore.

It’s what he should have been doing this entire time.

* * *

Tony really didn’t mean to be out all evening.

It was only meant to be one meeting this afternoon. He was fully intending on _not_ going - not because he didn’t want to, or couldn’t be bothered, or any of the other excuses he’s cycled through throughout his professional life.

But because today Peter was having a good day.

Good is a bit of a relative term for them lately.

But he got out of bed and made eggs on toast for him and Tony. He did his homework at the counter while Tony did the dishes and he completed the entire thing without spacing out. He sat in the lab for a few hours, pretending to tinker with a spare boot thruster probably because he thought Tony would be disappointed if he was doing nothing (which is _entirely_ untrue). Really, Tony’s sure he was just down there to seek out company and that makes him feel more accomplished than he could imagine.

Peter even asked if Tony wanted to sit down and watch an episode of Blue Planet with him tonight - Peter loves that show when his senses are overwhelmed or he’s feeling particularly down. Tony had agreed, of course, trying to hide his disbelief that Peter was that prepared to spend time with him when it means having to forgo what has become his routine of crawling into bed at seven o’clock and trying to shut out the world around him. He promised he’d bring back Peter’s favourite Chinese takeaway from the little place a few blocks over.

And now, Tony’s gone and ruined it.

He went to the meeting, if only because Pepper told him to and he loves Pepper, to find that Rhodey arrived earlier in the afternoon on a break from his service. He'd offered to take Tony out for a drink and it just sounded like such a tempting offer, to be able to get out of the office, away from the stifling grief-ridden tower and just maybe pretend things were _okay_ for a few hours.

Pretend that he hasn’t lost someone who became one of his closest confidants. Pretend that he doesn’t all of a sudden have the well-being of an entire teenager resting solely on his unqualified shoulders. He should have texted probably. Or at least let FRIDAY know. But time just escaped him, and the one strictly non-alcoholic drink he promised himself turned into a few, and then dinner and now, well…

He’s late.

As he rounds the corner into the kitchen, guilt swirls inside his stomach and makes him feel relentlessly uneasy. He’s fully expecting to find Peter already hidden himself away in his bedroom, to shut him out after feeling stood up.

But here he is.

He’s dressed for bed, plaid pyjama pants, his damp curls dripping down onto the shoulders of his worn hoodie - yet he’s in the middle of the kitchen. He stands in front of two mugs on the counter with his back to Tony, so he can see the way his shoulders slightly curve in on himself for reasons Tony has yet to decipher.

He’s making hot chocolate, he realises with a sudden jolt as he sees Peter pour the steaming liquid out into the mugs he’s got set in front of him.

 _May’s_ hot chocolate, he realises again, when the dash of cream is stirred in to each of them.

Peter really never does stop surprising him, and he’s perfectly content to just stand in the doorway and watch until he notices the line of Peter’s shoulders begin to shake ever so slightly when he reaches for the bottle of caramel sauce he and Peter usually use on ice cream that’s been sitting to his right, at the ready.

Tony takes a step further into the room, unsure of how to announce his presence when Peter gets there first. His voice is choked full of emotion. “I’m okay, Mister Stark. Promise.”

Tony startles a little as Peter turns around, but then he relaxes into a sheepish smile. He really should have known that Peter’s senses would be able to pick him up as soon as he stepped into the penthouse.

“I’m really sorry I’m late,” he offers. It’s useless now. There’s nothing he can do about it. He still needs Peter to know how sorry he is though. How much his absence this evening hasn’t been about _him._

Peter shrugs. “It’s okay.”

He doesn’t look annoyed. Unshed tears are gleaming in the corners of his eyes but Tony selfishly hopes that’s more to do with the hot chocolate than him. Peter adds the final drizzle of caramel over the top of both of them and pushes one across the marble top towards Tony.

It’s all a little too reminiscent of the meltdown the two of them had over the top of their untouched blueberry smoothies a few weeks ago, but the two of them have let the sharp edges of their grief dissipate slowly since then. They’re a little worn down now instead, but everything feels calmer. It’s a nice change.

It reminds Tony of their old normal.

“You made hot chocolate, huh?” Tony says. He picks the mug up and revels in the comforting warmth it radiates.

Peter nods, almost shyly. “Yeah. I asked FRIDAY to let me know when you were on your way home. I hope that’s okay? I just thought, um, maybe it would be nice? For both of us? I mean, you’ve probably already had dinner right, so you don’t have to drink it. I just wanted to.”

“Of course it's okay," Tony reassures him quickly. "I had dinner with Rhodey but what sort of crazy person doesn't leave room for hot chocolate?” Then, he breaks off into a sudden horrible thought. “Wait, have you eaten?” _He’s still the worst at this. How do you forget to feed the spider-kid with the super-metabolism?_ “I can whip up something quickly if you haven’t, I-”

“It’s okay, Mister Stark,” Peter reassures him. “Pepper and I had soup earlier. She’s on a conference call now, I think.”

God bless Pepper.

“I, uh, that’s good. I really am sorry I’m a bit later home tonight than I said I would be, kid. I just got caught up.”

Peter looks up at him and there are no traces of annoyance, betrayal, or hurt anywhere on his face, even when he would be well within his rights to be harbouring those sorts of feelings towards him. All Tony can see is understanding.

What on earth did he do to deserve a kid as relentlessly thoughtful and tolerant as Peter Parker?

_You and Ben raised him right, May._

“It’s okay, I get it,” Peter says softly. “I’ve been… a lot recently, I guess. I don’t blame you for needing a break,” he adds, his voice still completely steady. He isn’t trying to guilt Tony. He’s speaking what he’s sure is the truth.

“Not from you, though. Never from you, Pete. Just a break from… um-”

“-life?” Peter finishes. Tony nods a little, wry smile forming on his lips.

“You could say that, yeah.”

Peter takes a sip of his drink and when he pulls his mug away, it reveals a smear of chocolate on his upper lip. Tony has to fight the urge to lick his thumb and reach forward to wipe it off in a burst of paternal urge so sudden that he almost isn’t sure where it comes from.

One look across at Peter is enough of an explanation. _His kid_.

“So?” Peter probes. “What’d’you think? Aunt May always used to brag about how it was the only good thing she could make without messing it up. That’s kinda why I made it tonight, actually. I - I think she’d want you to try it. Just so you'd know she could do something well, y’know?”

“Your Aunt did a lot of things well, kid. Scaring the hell out of me when she wanted to was one. Raising you was another.” Peter smiles at this, and Tony lifts his mug to his mouth to take a sip. It burns a little as it passes his lips and scalds his tongue, but it’s rich, creamy and chocolatey. Peter’s right - May definitely knew how to make a hot chocolate. “We’ll add hot chocolate making to that list as well.”

Peter grins. It's still a little hesitant, but open and joyful all the same. He tightens his hands around his own mug.

Tony wishes he could capture the look on his face and just store it for all the times like what they’ve just been through, to remind him that Peter doesn’t stay down forever. It’s just not in his nature. He’s the strongest kid Tony knows.

“You still fancy sitting down and watching that documentary with me, even if I suck at keeping my promises? Planet Earth, was that it?”

Peter scoffs a little and shakes his head. “ _Blue Planet_ , Mister Stark. And, uh, maybe another time. I was wondering whether we could just go and um, sit outside, maybe? It’s really nice out tonight.”

Tony hasn’t really noticed, but when he takes a glimpse out the windows, curtains still fully open, there isn’t a cloud in the darkened sky.

“That sounds nice. I’d like that.”

So, they sit out on the balcony. They press themselves together side by side on the stupidly overpriced couch swing Tony bought for Pepper a few months ago when she flippantly mentioned that she likes to sit outside and watch the sunrise over the city with a cup of tea.

It’s a bit cold for that, at this time of year, and it’s probably a bit cold to be out there now, even with their hot chocolates and the abundance of blankets that Tony’s piled over himself and Peter but it’s worth it.

They rock back and forth slowly. Peter flicks Tony on the ear playfully when droplets of his hot chocolate spill over the edge and land on the sleeve of Peter’s hoodie. His laugh is clear and bright like the night that stretches out in front of them, over the top of the city they both love so much.

Tony wants to pull him close and never let him go.

"Hey Mister Stark?" Peter asks suddenly, “d’you see that star right up there? The brightest one?” His voice is soft and tentative as if he’s unsure of whether or not he wants to be heard, but he’s putting it out there anyway. Tony will never stop being proud of him.

You hardly ever see stars in the city at night, only the brightest ones shining through the smog and the haze of the gleaming skyscraper lights. It’s not hard to spot the one Peter’s talking about, it’s one of the only few in the sky tonight, sparkling just above the Chrysler Building in the distance.

Tony hums a quiet assent, signalling for Peter to go on. It takes him a second, but he does eventually. “I’ve always liked to think that’s Ben," he murmurs. "And I just, I kinda wonder, do you reckon people can share stars? Y’know, once they’re gone?”

Tony thinks this over for a moment. He isn't overly settled on his own views of the afterlife. He just thinks that people will believe what they need to, to help soothe their broken heart. This is what Peter needs to believe. “I don’t see why not." 

“I think May’d like to be with Ben the best. She wouldn’t want to be out there all on her own.”

A flood of emotion rushes through Tony. _This kid, this kid, this kid_.

Sometimes Tony wonders the same thing - wonders whether his own parents are still together somewhere out there. Whether his mother could bear a second longer with his father. May and Ben Parker, though. They sound like they were the real deal.

He’d give anything to be able to meet the man that helped to raise Peter into the brilliant, compassionate young man he’s becoming.

He’d give anything to be able to speak to the woman that’s guided Peter through the last few years of his life almost single-handedly just one last time.

“They’re together now, kid, I promise you. They get to do what they did best together again now. Watch over you.”

Peter smiles up towards the sky and lets his head drop down onto Tony’s shoulder. He rests it there, curls tickling the side of his neck.

Tony takes a breath, says a silent thanks to the brightest star in the sky that night and lets himself think that maybe, just maybe, the two of them are going to be okay.

_Oh, May Parker. If you could see us now, would you be proud of us?_

_We miss you every day._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading x
> 
> work & chapter titles from 'soon you'll get better' - taylor swift
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](https://searchingforstarss.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
